Archive for the ‘legal’ tag
Anticipated Pirate Bay Trial Begins
The much-anticipated criminal trial of The Pirate Bay’s operators begins in a Stockholm criminal court on Monday reported CNET.
The men behind of the notorious BitTorrent tracking service known for pointing the way to pirated software, games, music and movies are accused of contributory copyright infringement and face up to two years in prison each, in addition to fines as high as $180,000.
The defendants are Hans Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Peter Sunde and Carl Lundström. Prosecutor Hakan Roswall has summarized the charges as “promoting other people’s infringements of copyright laws.”
The trial is expected to be closely followed by law enforcement agencies, internet surfers, Hollywood and others. Among other things, it represents the first prosecution of its kind in Sweden, a country once thought of as a bastion of the liberal laws that gave rise to The Pirate Bay five years ago.
TorrentSpy Appeals $111M Copyright Judgment
Legal representative for BitTorrent site TorrentSpy deceided to appeal the $111M copyright infrigment judgement the site have been striked in May 2008 by the Motion Picture Association of Americain. They claim that the court erred in its procedures and its judgment.
“The case was not decided on the merits of copyright issues whatsoever. U.S. rules of evidence conflict with European privacy standards, resulting in the judge ruling from the bench instead of letting the case go to trial.”
The judge ruled that TorrentSpy was guilty of vicarious copyright infringement, along with inducing and contributing to such acts, according to the Motion Picture Association of America. The court issued an order barring TorrentSpy from operation.
They are asking the 9th Circuit of Appeals in Northern California to overturn the judge’s ruling and set a trial.